[…] Chen Jian, an expert at Cornell University on American-Chinese relations, says the mounting anti-Western invective is largely a tactic aimed at shifting attention from the potential repercussions of a slowing economy, the glaring gap between rich and poor and the jaw-dropping accounts of official corruption that have become daily fare here. “There is a profound sense of vulnerability within the party, even a sense of crisis,” said Professor Chen, who experienced the excesses of the Cultural Revolution as an adolescent in China.

Yet Professor Chen and other analysts say the “hostile foreign forces” narrative is likely to have little impact on the generation of young Chinese weaned on Kobe Bryant and illegal downloads of “Seinfeld.” “Just look at all the students who want to study in the United States,” he said. “I don’t think these anti-American messages are convincing anyone.” [Source]

The academy has long been seen as a stronghold of the mainland’s Marxist-Leninist ideologues and a propaganda tool of the Communist Party. But it’s also well respected. It is considered one of the world’s largest research institutes for social sciences in terms of personnel and physical resources.

[…] Privately, some scholars at CASS said the recent developments had already sent a psychological chill through intellectual circles. The scholars said they were particularly concerned about the accusation of “foreign infiltration” because many had developed research relationships with foreign counterparts.

Some scholars publicly expressed concern that the tightening of ideological controls would distract from their academic research. [Source]

The warnings to Cass, an influential government think tank, come at a time when President Xi Jinping is tightening his grip on the media and has launched sweeping anti-corruption and ideological campaigns targeting the civil service and state-owned enterprises, as well as an intense crackdown on liberal intellectuals and activists.

On Friday, the CCDI spoke to nine new discipline inspectors at another leading research institute, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, about their roles and the anti-graft campaign inside that academy.

During a session on Xi’s thoughts on party discipline at Cass, Zhang [Yingwei] said the academy had “ideological problems”.

These included using academic research as a guise for other purposes; using the internet to promote theories that played into the hands of foreign powers, allowing undue foreign influence in sensitive issues; and “illegal collusion” between Cass experts and foreign interests at sensitive times. [Source]

More surprisingly, perhaps, is the kinds of officials were ranked as second-, third-, and fourth-most disliked officials: school managers, hospital managers and village heads. Though at least in theory, such officials are tasked with serving the public, the report’s author, Tang Jun, says that since such officials control scarce resources and have limited restrictions on their power, they may be easily corrupted.

[…] The report also broke down official unpopularity according to province and found that southern Guangdong’s officials received the nation’s lowest marks. According to the report’s “image crisis scale,” Beijing-based officials also ranked second-to-last among residents, accounting for 4.7% of all 2,074 cases that negatively affected the image of the government, the report said. Guangdong accounted for 8.4% of such incidents.

One of the reason why residents might view officials in a prosperous province such as Guangdong with such resentment, analysts say, is that the province has been home to a number of new policies that may have created friction as they’ve been implemented. Such policies in recent years have included loosening the country’s hukou system and implementing the country’s second-child policy. [Source]

Tang Jun, director of a crisis management research center at the Renmin University of China, said that the three regions [Guangdong, Beijing, and third-ranked Henan] have large populations with more migrant workers, which increases the difficulty of social governance.

Guangdong and Beijing are also known for their vibrant media industry, which results in high exposure of public incidents, Tang said.

The Chinese government will decentralize authority, be more transparent and adopt a “zero tolerance” attitude to corruption this year as it deepens its fight against graft, reported state media on Sunday, citing Premier Li Keqiang.

The latest measures were laid out in a speech by Li Keqiang on February 11, in a meeting on tackling corruption, but only published by state news agency Xinhua late on Sunday.

Li Keqiang criticized the over-concentration of power by the central government and urged the institution of an open government “as the most effective way to accept supervision”.

“When the government controls too much, directly intervenes in micro-economic activities, it not only influences the ability of the market to play a decisive role in the allocation of resources, it also increases transaction costs and makes it easy for corruption to breed,” he said. [Source]

In an apparent reference to Zhou and his associates, a new edition of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ ‘Blue Book of the Rule of Law’ warned of senior officials creating loyalist cliques by promoting allies. The report also predicted that more corrupt officials are likely to try to flee the country as the anti-graft campaign continues. From Keith Zhai at South China Morning Post:

“The phenomenon of the flight of officials is likely to escalate, particularly under the current anti-graft wave,” said Lu Yanbin, a researcher at the academy’s Institute of Law and the co-author of the yearbook. “Corrupt cadres are running out of places to live in this country.”

[…] A previous report from the CASS said about 18,000 officials fled the country between 1995 and 2008, and smuggled out assets totaling 800 billion yuan.

The Blue Book also warned against senior officials promoting their aides and creating a “secretary gang” that may breed “organised crime and major violations”.

[…] Experts at the academy also predicted a pilot scheme requiring party officials to disclose their assets would be introduced in more areas this year.

[…] The annual report suggests the scheme should cover relatively recently appointed officials, but veteran government staff should be excluded. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/02/li-keqiang-cass-unveil-anti-corruption-prescriptions/feed/0In New Research, A More Cynical Urban Chinahttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/05/in-new-research-a-more-cynical-urban-china/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/05/in-new-research-a-more-cynical-urban-china/#commentsTue, 07 May 2013 02:12:48 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=155621Patrick Boehler of the South China Morning Post reports that new research by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences showed that conservatives outnumber liberals in Chinese cities:

Some 38.1 per cent of those surveyed held more conservative values, were more critical of overall individualism and leaned towards the “left”, a term that commonly refers to those more patriotic, according to the study by scholar Zhang Mingshu, director of the political culture research centre at the academy.

Only 8 per cent leaned to the “right”, supporting more individual freedoms and a smaller government, and were more critical towards the Communist Party’s legacy. The rest of those polled were categorised as centrists, neither left nor right.

“I was surprised,” Zhang told the Guangzhou-based liberal newspaper Southern Weekly. “But if you calmly look around you – not only among intellectuals, but also in your hometown, if you go on the streets – you’ll see that this ratio is fundamentally accurate.”

Zhang surveyed 1,750 adult urban residents across the nation on their political views, their attitudes towards participating in politics and their knowledge about politics.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/05/in-new-research-a-more-cynical-urban-china/feed/0Trust Among Chinese Drops to Record Lowhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/02/trust-among-chinese-drops-to-record-low/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/02/trust-among-chinese-drops-to-record-low/#commentsSat, 23 Feb 2013 08:00:12 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=151799The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ newly released Annual Report on Social Mentality suggests that social trust in China continues to fall. From He Dan at China Daily:

The Blue Book of Social Mentality, the latest annual report on the social mentality of China, analyzed respondents’ trust toward different people and organizations and drew a conclusion that trust in society is poor. The trust level was 59.7 points out of a full mark of 100 points.

In 2010, the trust level was 62.9 points.

[…] It showed that around 30 percent of the people polled trusted strangers on the street and about 24 percent trusted strangers online.

In most cases, a higher number of Chinese parents admitted to telling ‘instrumental’ lies which entice the child into doing something.

The report, published in the International Journal of Psychology, found that in both countries [China and the U.S.] the practice of lying to one’s children to encourage behavioural compliance was rife and most frequently took the form of falsely threatening to leave a child alone in public if he or she refused to follow the parent.

[…] Cross-cultural differences were also seen: a larger proportion of the parents in China reported that they employed instrumental lie-telling to promote compliance, and a larger proportion approved of this practice, as compared to the parents in the US.

Some in China have argued that a revival of religion might help fill the moral vacuum that has been swirling at the center of Chinese society ever since the country shed its belief in communism to embrace market economics three decades ago. But with surveys showing trust eroding in China, news of a fake monk scheme at a sacred mountain suggests even religion isn’t immune to the no-holds-barred hustler ethos that has come to dominate so much of the country.

[…] The Temple for the God of Wealth and another temple called Foguo Zhongxin reportedly hired fake monks to trick tourists into donating money and buying expensive incense, Xinhua said, adding that the temples also fooled tourists into paying too much for ceremonies.

[…] The companies in charge of managing Wutaishan and some of China’s other sacred peaks have made headlines in recent years by announcing plans for initial public offerings on stock markets. Those announcements prompted Liu Wei, deputy director of China’s State Administration for Religious affairs, to issue a press release in June saying the administration would object to the commercial exploitation of religious resources.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/02/trust-among-chinese-drops-to-record-low/feed/0Academic Outraged at U.K. Visa Hukou Demandhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/01/academic-outraged-at-u-k-visa-hukou-demand/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/01/academic-outraged-at-u-k-visa-hukou-demand/#commentsMon, 21 Jan 2013 00:07:20 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=150258Yu Jianrong, a professor of rural affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, is to meet with the British ambassador after outsourced visa processing staff insisted on seeing his hukou household registration document. From Minnie Chan at the South China Morning Post:

“I was deeply humiliated because I was not required to provide any hukou document when I was applying for visas to France and the United States after 9/11,” Yu told the Sunday Morning Post.

[…] The incident comes amid growing calls to reform the system from inside and outside the government. Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun yesterday ordered local police chiefs, who handle routine hukou matters, to co-operate with other agencies in reforming the system, state television reported.

[…] “I demand that the British government stop requiring Chinese applicants to provide a hukou document, which is a discriminatory system created under the planned economic era of the last century and conflicts with today’s common international values,” Yu wrote in an open letter to the British government.

“I’ll never provide my hukou, even if it’s at the cost of not being able to attend the conference in the UK. It’s my principle,” said Yu.

[…] “What made me even angrier is that when I said I would never show them the hukou, an agent standing at the next counter immediately told me that he could help me to get the visa without me providing it,” Yu said.

“It’s blackmail. The agent is obviously familiar with the embassy employees,” he said.

[…] Liu Guofu, an expert on immigration law from Beijing Institute of Technology said an embassy can ask for any supporting documentation it likes.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/01/academic-outraged-at-u-k-visa-hukou-demand/feed/0One-Child Policy Accused of Breeding Mistrusthttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/01/one-child-policy-accused-of-breeding-mistrust/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/01/one-child-policy-accused-of-breeding-mistrust/#commentsMon, 14 Jan 2013 22:01:31 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=149979An Australian study published last week attempts to quantify the psychological effects of the “one-child policy” on those born under it, who have often been disparaged as a generation of spoiled “Little Emperors”. Its findings may bode ill for the future of Chinese business and society. From Bloomberg News:

Using surveys of 421 men and women in Beijing and testing their skills in economic games, researchers in Australia found those born after the 1979 policy were more pessimistic, nervous, less conscientious, less competitive and more risk averse. They also found them to be 23 percent less prone to choose an occupation that entails business risk, such as becoming a stockbroker, entrepreneur or private firm manager.

[…] Xin Meng, a co-author of the study who grew up in Beijing and left China in 1988, said she detects a different behavioral attitude among the only-child population compared with the previous generation. A 2011 incident where a two-year-old girl in southern China died after she was struck by two vans and ignored by 18 passersby caused a furor, with domestic media and Internet users criticizing Chinese society for a lack of morality.

“An incident like this is just unthinkable 20 years ago,” said Meng, a professor of economics at the Australian National University in Canberra. “If you’ve lived in the Chinese society for a long time, you can sense the difference as people become more individualistic.”

Professor Stuart West, from the University of Oxford, said the study was “very interesting”.

However, he cautioned against some of the conclusions that had been drawn.

He explained: “They are making very strong claims about differences in behaviour for people born before or after 1979, and they are inferring it is all to do with the introduction of the one child policy in that year.

“The problem is that is a potential explanation for that data – but there are almost an infinite number of other explanations of anything else that could have varied with time: variation of socio-economic environment, prosperity, nutrition, political environment – anything.”

Toni Falbo, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas in Austin who studies these children, was puzzled that the study’s findings showed poor performance so consistently in virtually all measures. She said she would have expected a more mixed picture, and she hopes follow-up research is done.

[…] Careful studies done elsewhere that look for certain qualities in the only child find that “on average, they’re pretty much like everybody else,” she said.

The Chinese public was given a “trust score” of just 59.7 points out of a total of 100, according to the results of the CASS survey conducted among residents in seven cities, including Beijing, east China’s Shanghai, south China’s Guangzhou, central China’s Wuhan and southwest China’s Chongqing municipalities.

The survey showed that residents in China’s central and western regions tend to trust others more than their eastern counterparts.

[…] Yang Yiyin, one of the survey’s organizers, attributed the lack of trust to migration, China’s transformation from a planned economy to a market economy and declining “family culture.”

“People are more concerned about trust, especially in a transformative period when a new system of trust has not been established,” said Yang.

Although many other families live in the market above their stores, there is little sense of community. Just as in countless other hardscrabble suburbs across China, the residents are mostly migrants, drawn from all over the country.

They have little in common, beyond their shared desire to make money and improve their lot. And in the evenings, they close their shutters and retreat into their lonely stores.

“It is quite sad that we don’t really talk to each other because we all sell different things,” said a 50-year-old woman who would only name herself as Ms Hu, from a store selling abrasive pads a short stroll away from the Wang’s shop.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/01/one-child-policy-accused-of-breeding-mistrust/feed/0Breaking the Cycle of Petition and Interceptionhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/12/breaking-the-cycle-of-petition-and-interception/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/12/breaking-the-cycle-of-petition-and-interception/#commentsThu, 13 Dec 2012 00:40:26 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=148160ChinaGeeks’ Charles Custer has translated a Caixin opinion piece by Yu Jianrong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Yu outlines various problems with and resulting from China’s petitioning system and the parallel system of interceptors and black jails put in place to obstruct it. He presents some proposals for improvement, but concludes that radical political change and complete reform will ultimately be necessary.

“Intercepting petitioners” refers to local officials using various measures to intercept people attempting to petition at the [provincial] or central offices and forcibly taking them back to their hometowns. In China’s current political climate, the intercepting of petitioners has long been an open secret, an “unwritten rule” of petition office stability management work, an uncivilized but tacitly accepted rule for government work, and an important part of the job of those who “greet petitioners.” Whenever the two congresses or National Day or some other “sensitive” time rolls around, many additional ‘petitioner interception’ workers come to Beijing to intercept petitioners from their local area to prevent petitioners from staying in Beijing and increasing the number of complaints about their locale on the record.

[…] Meeting petitioners’ and ‘intercepting petitioners’ are both important reflections of the variation in today’s national petitioning system. Petition officers and officials, local governments, and the central government all participate, using the system as a platform for a kind of game in which they attempt to maximize their own interests. But because of this they have fallen into problems [like the three Yu just listed and those below], this can be called the ‘petitioning paradox.’

[…] The result is that as local governments use even more severe methods to deal with petitioners, the complaints of petitioners become more extreme, creating a vicious cycle.Because of this, the petitioning system has gone from useless to harmful; from reducing pressure to actively increasing it.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/12/breaking-the-cycle-of-petition-and-interception/feed/0Lots of Advice from Chinese Academics, but Few Takershttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/08/lots-of-advice-from-chinese-academics-but-few-takers/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/08/lots-of-advice-from-chinese-academics-but-few-takers/#commentsTue, 07 Aug 2012 03:47:04 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=141281For The Wall Street Journal, Chinese civil society expert Yiyi Lu contrasts American academics – which are more likely to act as critics of their governments – with Chinese scholars who utilize their research to advise the regime. But while China may encourage internal analysis and advice, Lu writes that the impact of such advice is questionable:

A large number of reports and analyses are produced daily by Party and government organs, state-owned research institutes, media organizations and quasi-governmental organizations in China, according to the many who have written them over the years. These reports are not published for the benefit of society at large. Rather, their circulation is restricted to senior officials, in order to keep them better informed of the situation in the country. Because they are kept as internal documents, these reports discuss problems more candidly and often include data and information that are deemed sensitive and are therefore withheld from the public.

…

The extensive and elaborate system for utilizing social-science research to develop policy recommendations for decision-makers should have made the Chinese government one of the best informed and advised in the world and uniquely equipped to address challenges facing the country. Yet, in many areas, the billions of yuan poured into government-funded research and the page after page of internal reference advice offered by the country’s best scholars do not seem to have resulted in any improvement in the government’s performance.

…

I asked a government researcher why all the good advice people like him had offered decision-makers did not seem to have any effect. “A lot of it is filtered out and does not reach people at the very top,” he said. “Besides, the thinking of many decision-makers has ossified and just can’t be changed.”

Seeking advice is always easier than following it. The Chinese state has developed a sophisticated system for collecting information, analysis and policy recommendations. Whether it has made good use of the system is an entirely different matter.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/08/lots-of-advice-from-chinese-academics-but-few-takers/feed/0Shifang: A Study in Contrastshttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/07/shifang-a-study-contrasts/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/07/shifang-a-study-contrasts/#commentsFri, 06 Jul 2012 19:02:49 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=139436Riot police in Shifang, Sichuan.
The turmoil in Shifang subsided on Wednesday as the local government canceled plans to build a copper molybdenum processing plant. Earlier this]]>

Riot police in Shifang, Sichuan.

The turmoil in Shifang subsided on Wednesday as the local government canceled plans to build a copper molybdenum processing plant. Earlier this week, street protesters were greeted with tear gas and billy clubs. Unarmed residents were beaten and arrested. Now those detained have been released.

On July 2 a group organized and instigated illegal protest activities in violation of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Assemblies, severely affecting normal social order and causing negative repercussions. To preserve social order and ensure the safety of all citizens and their property, we hereby hereby issue the following notice in accordance with the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Assemblies, Processions and Demonstrations:

1) Gathering or participating in assemblies or demonstrations of any kind which have not been approved by public security organs is strictly prohibited.

2) The use of the Internet, cell phone SMS messages or other means to organize or instigate illegal assemblies, protests or demonstrations of any kind is strictly prohibited.

3) Public security organs will, in accordance with the law, order those holding or participating in illegal assemblies, protests or demonstrations to disperse. Public security organs will forcibly break up those who refuse to disperse.

4) Public security organs will, in accordance with the law, halt all those exhibiting extreme behavior while participating in illegal assemblies, protests or demonstrations. Those who refuse to obey orders will be removed or detained by force.

5) In firm accordance with the law, public security organs will stop, investigate and prosecute any persons who threaten public safety or damage social order by engaging in illegal activity while participating in illegal assemblies, protests or demonstrations.

6) Public security organs will, in accordance with the law, punish those who engage in criminal activities, including: participating in or taking responsibility for illegal assemblies, protests or demonstrations; gathering and disturbing social order; taking advantage of the situation to destroy property.

Shifang City Police Department
July 2, 2012

Save Shifang! All City Residents Unite!

People of Shifang, let’s save our city!! It already a “cancer town,” and they still want to build that molybdenum copper plant. We resolutely oppose this! This is our shared home, and it is our responsibility to protect it. Everyone is responsible for protecting the environment!!

Perhaps many people still do not know Shifang plans to build a molybdenum copper plant, and still more people do not know the damage this will cause. Once construction of the factory begins, it will already be too late. We do not want to leave Shifang! Shifang is the “Bright Pearl of Western Sichuan.” We cannot leave! Heavy metal pollution will cause us terrible harm.

Are there really that many Shifang residents who have the money to move to another province? We must come together and work to keep the molybdenum copper plant far from Shifang!

People of Shifang, rise up!!

“Mass incidents” (群体事件), local protests targeting specific grievances, are on the rise. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) estimates that there were 90,000 such incidents in 2009, up from 60,000 in 2006. Yu Jianrong of CASS put the number of mass incidents in 1993 at only 8,709.

But it isn’t protest alone that may be shifting power to the people. Like the backtracking forced on authorities after last year’s train crash in Wenzhou, the outcome of Shifang depended on social media. Without the video, photos and documents circulating online, this week’s protest may well have been fruitless.

The sheer volume of chatter about Shifang, and Han Han’s blog post on the subject, seem to have kept relevant terms unblocked from Weibo search results. Authorities may also not have anticipated a local issue going national. Whatever the reason, the Shifang incident has remained surprisingly uncensored. Weibo, clearly, is power. What remains to be seen is if the public will simply continue to pressure the government case by case, or if true reform will follow.